carpediemracing 

@shovelhd do you use the permanent green loctite or the penetrating one for BB30 bearings? I got the penetrating one and my bike is a bit creaky. The permanent one is for sleeving engine blocks etc but I'll use it if it's significantly "more filling".

globecanvas

I just realized with the cannondale fancycranks I can just pick up a 50/34 spider-ring on ebay. It hadn't even occurred to me but that is a major convenience advantage of the sisl2 system. (Of course the downside is that you can't swap just the chainrings without the spider.)

jtwilson

Anyone have experience with carbon fiber FD clamp adapters? Just ordered one for my up-coming build but I am wondering if it's going to be too flimsy. I see now that there is a K-Edge one that is only about 10 grams heavier. Opinions welcome.

shovelhd

I use green retaining compound not thread locker. My bottle says 603 but I believe that has been replaced wit 609.

tetonrider

globe...got any ideas on what your lowest speed will be? if so, use a calculator like this one to plug in the various gear combos and then see which will get you closest to your desired cadence.

guessing on this forum we're probably in the ballpark of similar power-to-weight ratios. now, power-to-weight doesn't directly affect gearing, but it affects speed. for me, 36x25 was >=8mph on an 8-10% grade when fresh. long event and some steeper grades and i'd think you'd be going slower....meaning you'd want as low gearing as possible.

i'd go 34x28...or lower. the extra weight of the bike will slow you down just a bit but will do less harm than grinding.

OTOH, we're talking about 1/2mph difference between 34x28 and 39x28 or about 5rpm slower, so it's not like you'll be spinning with one and grinding with the other.

globecanvas

Given the original question (light weight vs gears) sounds like the consensus is to choose gears over light weight, thanks guys.

But, I wasn't thinking about things properly. The lighter bike has a hollowgram crank, and the hollowgram system is very cool because you can swap out any part individually. I can just get a 110 spider for it and use compact chainrings I already have.

tetonrider

do you need one? got an SRM for a customer who had these. he had 100 or so miles on his 50/34 rings before we swapped it for the meter and rings. been meaning to list it on ebay with a batch of stuff but haven't gotten around to it yet. shoot me a note if you are interested in it.

hollowgram cranks are nice, for sure. specialized cranks are a bit lighter.

tetonrider

yes, this is a cool feature of systems like c'dale and SPZ....i have some MTB spiders for hollowgram if you wanted to go super low with gearing, or the "spidering" (i think that's the actual name!) if you want to go that route.

thechemist

So has anyone actually had more stopping power from upgrading the actual brakes or is it really just the pad. Thinking of swapping my sram force brakes for some planetx or similar and hitting two birds with one stone(reduced weight stopping power).

I am running the swissstop yellow pads for carbon rims and frankly i think they suck. How are you guys cleaning the pads post race? assuming alignment is also key.

Creatre

Carbon wheels are never going to have amazing braking performance, no matter what you change. My experience for calipers is stick to name brands or performance suffers a bit (aka don't go with planetx, I hate mine on my tt bike). For pads, I thought yellow's did okay other than yellowing the wheel. I'm trying the black prince right now, but only have like 20 miles on them. It seems to not bite as much, not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet, I need more time on them.

topflightpro

Globe, if you are planning to swap the spiders yourself, you'll need the little Cannondale tool and a vise. (It can be done without a vise, but it is not easy, or advised.)

Chemist - I had Zero Gravity brakes for awhile. (Some of the Planet X stuff is of a similar design.) I didn't notice that they stopped any better or worse than anything else. But, they were an absolute PIA to set up. They never wanted to stay straight. I finally just gave up and sold them. Went with Sram Red instead. They work fine with a variety of pads.

carpediemracing 

I've been using regular Campy brakes for a while now, with Koolstop pads, since 2010 for the current batch of wheels. I don't change pads when going from alum->carbon->alum. I did, back in 2008?, but after a few changes back and forth I stopped. At first I used the black koolstops but now the black/salmon combo. You have to have salmon for wet, the black koolstops are like water soluble wood in the wet.

Prior to that I used salmon koolstop on Zipps, like in the mid-late 90s.

carpediemracing 

I was looking through pictures with my wife's mother (she visited sort of unexpectedly) and found the picture of the SRM crank etc that I was looking for before.

Total crankset, with SRM spider, cranks, BB, computer head (PCV), wire harness, chainrings, bolts, it weighs 573g.

globecanvas

Thanks for the tip! I have the tool (actually I have the enduro version which seems better because it clamps itself to the crank). I may bend your ear when I get around to actually doing this.

I wonder how tedious the swap is, compared to changing cassettes? Is it reasonable to change out the spider-ring for different races?


That's interesting... I just yesterday read this on the Hed web site:



But, I have also heard it's bad to use the same pads for alu and carbon rims, because there can be aluminum shards in the pads that will tear up the carbon braking surface. I have no personal experience with carbon wheels, but I am looking at picking up some Stingers so I was just reading up on this.

Creatre

I think people are more fearful than they should be about carbon stuff. I raced on a Zipp wheel that was cracked and had a hole in it for a while, so I tend to be more trusting. My first set of carbon wheels has been abused. Currently there are sticks/debris stuck in all 3 slits of all 4 swisstop yellow pads. That's gotta be worse than having a couple aluminum shards. And the brake track looks fine.

topflightpro

Globe. It's actually really easy if you have a vice and attach the tool to the crank arm.

With the Cannondale spider ring tool, I bought some bolts from Lowes so I could lock it to the crank arm. The tool has two flat edges that fit perfectly into a vise. You then just turn the crank arm.

The first time I did it, I did not bolt the tool to the crank and used a monkey wrench to hold the tool. It was not easy, but I got it to work.

But yeah, if you have the proper set up, it is easy enough that you could swap out the spiders on a nearly daily basis if you wanted.

tetonrider

it's more annoying to remove the hollowgram crank arm from the spindle than to remove the spider, IME. it's just annoying as you have to remove the bolt and the tiny washer, then use the separate tool to back off the arm. if you have the appropriate tool removing the spider is quite easy. it's also easy then to tighten the crank bolt and put the arm back on. i don't pull crank arms that often, but i prefer designs that don't require a separate tool to do it (e.g. shimano, specialized).

i wouldn't want to make the swap daily, but periodically it is totally fine.


IME, the shimano blue carbon pads work best on the h3c; not sure about the stinger. the h3c has a pretty damn hard braking surface, so it needs a tougher pad.

also, as for an earlier comment re: carbon not having great braking properties, lately i've been alternating between zipp FC wheels (w/ platinum pads) and shimano DA wheels with alu braking surfaces (c35 w/ DA pads). i think that the zipp setup brakes BETTER in dry conditions.

tetonrider

nice--you included the spindle. not saying you're saying it, but people bring up hollowgram weights all the time and there's much press saying that it is the lightest crankset. they (not you) often do not make apples-to-apples comparisons, e.g., comparing hollowgram arms to specialized arms--forgetting that the SPZ arms include the spindle.

i leave rings out of comparisons as they are easy to swap.

2 specialized arms @ 172.5 incl spindle + washers/lockring = 324g.
2 hollowgram arms @ 172.5 + spindle + crank bolt/spacer/washers = 365g.

splitting hairs, but the whole hollowgram-is-the-lightest isn't accurate.

hollowgram cranks are pretty awesome, though. love them for MTB.

i don't have an SRM road spider for cannondale handy to weigh but a MTB spider is 140g; specialized road SRMs are 118 (compact) to 169g (standard).

shovelhd

I used Reynolds Blue pads on my carbon wheels. They work fine in both dry and wet. I am about to try the Black Prince next to see of there is any improvement available. Calipers and levers are currently DA7900.

Creatre

Jeez. I think my Riken is like 900g or something with TT rings. That's like 3/4 a pound heavier than cdr's setup. Pretty significant.

carpediemracing 

As mentioned above swapping the spider is really easy. It's a lockring holding it in place, unscrew that and you're done removing the spider. That part is comparable to changing a one-piece cassette.

However, also as mentioned above, removing the crank is necessary and not ideal. The crank is all aluminum, as is the spindle, so I have to think that there's more chance for wear as I remove/install the cranks.

Having said all that I've moved the 175 arms around quite a few times onto my two SRM spiders, as batteries died etc, and I've done a few removals for replacing bearings. If I were serious about doing more hill stuff I'd definitely swap spiders to get compact rings.

carpediemracing 

I posted it as a reference, it's surprisingly light. When I weighed it I tried to include everything I'd need to use it. The rings are a bit light, I think, and the aluminum bolts screwing into the small ring is nice. I'm using a Praxis outer with the stock inner right now (finally got rid of the 44T inner so it no longer rubs the chainstay).

I think my Campy Record aluminum crank + BB was in the 900g range. I think I took pictures of it on the scale as well but I don't know where those are.

Mother in law had computer back up questions etc and I did a quick "info" on the folder for pictures on this mac - 300+ GB, mainly of Junior (pics and videos). On a 500GB drive that's a lot. I forgot some of the folders I had, from previous phones and such. In another folder I have some dash cam clips. All the unedited ride clips reside on external drives.

tetonrider

yes, <600 for the whole thing with head unit is pretty light. i suspect much of that is the rings.

DA 53/39 rings (7900 series) are 148g w/ bolts. (50/34s are actually heavier @ 155g. Guessing the larger rings had more material removed from the inside.)

PC7 head unit is 77g. A standard SRM is 169g vs 110 for a compact. The newer spiders have more battery capacity so I think they might weigh a bit more than the older ones. Maybe.

Still...I'm guessing those rings and bolts are fairly light.

Homebrew01

I think they make a non-permanent "filling" version.
Campag4life has several posts in the 41 discussing the best Loctite & BB30 installation info. PM him ? He's into BB30 discussions.

carpediemracing 

I went and looked. It's a green thread locker, not a green sleeve one. I should go get the green sleeve version. For now it'll creak a bit.